CODING & LEADING AND FACILITATING A STEM ACTIVITY
Hello everyone!
I can’t believe this is my last blog post for this assignment. Wow, how time has flown by! I genuinely enjoyed writing these blogs. They felt personal, which I loved, as I shared my insights on what I learned throughout the course. It did not feel like a challenging task to complete as I was able to be informal, in a way, making this experience of reflecting more enjoyable. Reflecting helps us develop and enhance our skills while making sense of our experiences with ourselves inside and outside of the classroom.
What will you take from this course moving forward? Any teaching strategies that you enjoyed? What made you enthusiastic to work in a STEM-related classroom?
As this is my last blog post, I want to be clear and concise with the information I am sharing with you today. I will quickly go over the lesson on coding and then, mine and my partner, Aaron’s, “Leading and Facilitating a STEM Learning Activity” on the Marshmallow-Pasta activity.
Ontario’s new curriculum now includes coding and programming starting at 6-7 years old, when a student is typically in grade one. When I first learned about coding, I was probably young, but I never really delved into it until an elective course during my first year here at Brock. I used a program to create a website using various codes and such. It amazes me that this is being opened to such a young group. But now it makes sense as the curriculum obviously does not jump into extreme coding and creating new sites and such, rather, it introduces the language in an acceptable manner. When children learn how to code, they learn to be patient and develop solving and computational thinking skills.
Children learn the Four P’s of Creative Learning (that Mitchel Resnick created) when coding. This consists of projects, peers, passion, and play. As the world we are living in is changing more rapidly than before, things children learn today will be obsolete tomorrow. The Four P’s of Creative Learning is aligned with a Constructionist approach to education that emphasizes the value of learners playfully while creating personally-meaningful projects in collaboration with peers (Resnick, n.d.). From Lecture 8 Slide 14:
Projects: People learn best when they are actively working on meaningful projects - generating new ideas, designing prototypes, refining iteratively
Peers: learning flourishes as a social activity, with people sharing ideas, collaborating on projects, and building on one another’s work
Passion: when people work on projects they care about, they work longer and harder, persist in the face of challenges, and learn more in the process
Play: learning involves playful experimentation - trying new things, tinkering with materials, testing boundaries, taking risks, iterating again and again
Coding has many benefits for students, especially now as technology is becoming such a large part of our lives. It is a constructive hobby that a child can adopt as it helps them to develop persistence, communication, creativity, and higher-order thinking. A parent cannot go wrong with encouraging their child to program as it can most definitely get them a creative and new job in the future.
Although coding is now in the Ontario curriculum, would you encourage/ implement coding in your teaching? Do you think it has many benefits for children and youth?
Let’s move on to the next section of this blog: the Marshmallow-Pasta activity that Aaron and I presented for the class for our Leading and Facilitating a STEM Learning Activity. I had such a great time working on this project with Aaron as we effectively communicated, brought up ideas, shared the work, and had a fun time working together and presenting.
Aaron thought of this idea of a Marshmallow-Pasta activity, and I thought it was brilliant! It involved all STEM-like features of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. When presenting, we discussed with each group 5 types of internal forces so that by completing the activity, students would understand why or why not their tower worked out. Students were asked to build a tower using only marshmallows and pasta (spaghetti and fettuccine) with objectives including the tower having to be one pasta-length tall and should hold dominos on top to determine if it was a strong building or not. We saw so many great towers that groups of two have built together.
Our worksheet was fairly straightforward. We had comprehension questions that enticed students to be challenged and needed to think of their process.
Overall, I think everyone had a great time, and this lesson followed various parts of Ontario’s curriculum, which allows me to understand that this activity can be implemented in a middle school classroom. Here are the curriculum guidelines for grade seven:
Grade 7:
Understanding Structures and Mechanisms - Form & Function (SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY)
Relating Science and Technology to Society and the Environment
1.1: Evaluate the importance for individuals, society, the economy, and the environment of factors that should be considered in designing and building structures and devices to meet specific needs (e.g., function; efficiency; ease of use; user preferences; aesthetics; cost; intended lifespan; effect on the environment; safety, health, legal requirements)
Developing Investigation and Communication Skills
2.2: Design, construct, and use physical models to investigate the effects of various forces on structures
2.3: Investigate the factors that determine the ability of a structure to support a load
Understanding Basic Concepts
3.5: Describe the role of symmetry in structures
3.6: Identify and describe factors that can cause a structure to fail
Oral Communication (LANGUAGE)
Speaking to Communicate Appropriate Language
2.4: Use appropriate words, phrases, and terminology from the full range of their vocabulary, including inclusive and non-discriminatory language, and a range of stylistic devices, to communicate their meaning accurately and engage the interest of their intended audience
I hope if you were able to participate in our lesson that you enjoyed it and would try to implement it into your future practices. I had such a great time working with Aaron and the class.
Thank you so much for being part of my learning journey. I hope you were able to learn something from this experience just as much as I have. If you have any questions or comments, let me know in the comment section. Looking forward to these last weeks with you all.
Enjoy the snow and holidays!
All the best and stay safe,
Victoria
📓📝😇
Reference
Resnick, M. (n.d.). Give P's a chance: Projects, peers, passion, play.
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